Below I have reproduced (in ASCII) a front-page New York Times article
from 1977 that I copied from microfiche. Many people have never seen
a newspaper article that actually reports real, official revelations
of mind control crimes. This was a relatively brief window in history
when such reporting could take place, and which ended too soon for the
bulk of the abuses to be exposed.
In hindsight, almost no one would *publicly* say that this information
should have been kept secret. On the other hand, it is known that
similar information is still being concealed, and there are very
active covert efforts to keep it that way. Moreover, the research did
not stop and there are similar admissions that need to be made about
crimes occurring up until the present day, 2003. It has been over
twenty years since the last investigations. If you do not think it is
too late already to preserve liberty, human dignity, and free will (as
opposed to an empty facade of such), in another twenty years it surely
will be.
How can we open up a similar window and expose or force out the truth
of past and ongoing U.S. mind control crimes? It will not be the same
as the 70s, because those particular "loopholes" for obtaining
information have been effectively closed -- and the times are just
different. I recommend that everyone read Angus Mackenzie's
posthumously published book _Secrets_ from 1997. Mackenzie describes
how the Freedom of Information Act was seriously weakened in the 80s
(in a secret "compromise" with the ACLU). Mackenzie also describes
how secrecy oaths (spies required to sign away their free speech
rights) went from being a method to keep the CIA's illegal domestic
spying and harassment program MHCHAOS secret to finally being required
for almost all intelligence positions. What was still left of the FOIA
has been almost completely gutted since the 9-11 attacks.
Some people claim that John Marks pulled his punches. I think that is
probably true, but Marks did do a lot of good work that few other
people were bothering with. So generally I greatly thank Marks for
the work he did. The only exception is when he goes on TV shows and
says things like we should put this all behind us or we should move
on. That is easy enough for *him* to say. What about the victims,
still left to suffer and be ridiculed? The CIA actually promised
Congress they would find and notify the MKULTRA victims, but it was a
lie. It never happened:
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/coldWarExperiments.html
[...]
MKULTRA. Most victims have never been informed by the government
of the nature of the experiments they were subjected to or, in
some cases, even fact that they were subjects. In a 1977 hearing,
then CIA director Stansfield Turner said he found the experiments
``abhorrent'' and promised that the CIA would find and notify the
people used in the tests. Turner last week insisted that ``they
found everyone they possibly could find.'' But internal memos and
depositions taken from CIA officials in a lawsuit against the agency
in the 1980s reveal that of the hundreds of experimental subjects used
in the CIA's mind-control program, code-named MKULTRA, only 14 were
ever notified and only one was compensated -- for $15,000.
[...]
They are still denying techniques that were used and in vogue 20 years
ago. But the victims remember, those of them who figured out what was
being done to them. And now there is a whole new batch of victims,
for example of the non-lethal weapons craze of the 90s. The CIA's
Inspector General is quoted in the following article, and provides a
technology-independent name for this sort of mind control operation.
They are "clandestine operations to control human behavior."
----------------
The New York Times, Thursday, July 21, 1977
Page A1
C.I.A. Data Show 14-Year Project On Controlling Human Behavior
By Nicholas M. Horrock
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 20 -- The Central Intelligence Agency conducted a
14-year program to find ways to "control human behavior" through the
use of chemical, biological and radiological material, according to
agency documents made public today by John Marks, a freelance
journalist.
Mr. Marks, an associate of the Center for National Security Studies,
asserted at a news conference that Adm. Stansfield Turner, Director of
Central Intelligence, in a letter to the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence last week, "seriously distorted" what the C.I.A. research
programs involved.
Mr. Marks said that, based on documents about the program he had
received under the Freedom of Information Act, he had concluded that
Admiral Turner "seems to be practicing what used to be called 'a
modified limited hangout'" when he called the agency's activity "a
program of experimentation with drugs."
"To be sure, drugs were part of it," he said, "but so were such other
techniques as electric shock, radiation, ultrasonics, psychosurgery,
psychology, and incapacitating agents, all of which were referred to
in documents I have received."
The documents made public today and the disclosure by the C.I.A. last
week that it had found another cache of previously undiscovered
records suggested broader experimentation on unwitting humans by the
intelligence agency or its paid researchers than had been publicly
known before. Mr. Marks said he had obtained or read about 1,000
C.I.A. documents, many of which were never turned over to the Senate
intelligence committee for its 1975 investigation of agency
activities.
C.I.A. spokesmen declined comment on Mr. Marks's charges. However,
Admiral Turner told newsmen after leaving a meeting with senators that
the agency was moving swiftly to review the documents it had found.
Mr. Marks distributed 20 documents that described the following
incidents, among others:
* In 1956, the C.I.A. contracted with a private physician to test
"bulbocapnine," a drug that can cause stupor or induce a catatonic
state, on monkeys and "convicts incarcerated at" an unnamed state
penitentiary. The agency wanted to known [sic] if the drug caused the
"loss of speech in man," "loss of sensitivity to pain -- loss of
memory, loss of will power."
* A letter from an unnamed C.I.A. official in 1949 discussed ways of
killing people without leaving a trace. "I believe that there are two
chemical substances which would be most useful in that they would
leave no characteristic pathological findings, and the quantities
needed could be easily transported to places where they were to be
used," the letter said. The letter also suggested exposure of an
individual to X-rays or to an environment in which he would freeze to
death. If these methods were too difficult, two methods needing no
special equipment, the letter said, would be to "smother the victim
with a pillow or to strangle him with a wide piece of cloth, such as a
bath towel."
Aware of Questionable Nature
* In 1952, two Russian agents who were "suspected of being doubled"
were interrogated using "narcohypnotic" methods. Under medical cover,
the documents said the two men were given sodium pentothal and a
stimulant. One interrogation produced a "remarkable" regression, the
papers said, during which "the subject actually relived certain past
activities of his life, some dating back 15 years while, in addition,
the subject totally accepted Mr. [name deleted] as an old and trusted
and beloved personal friend whom the subject had known in years past
in Georgia, U.S.S.R."
A summary of a 1953 meeting reported a suggestion that the C.I.A.
work with scientists of an unidentified foreign government, since
"that country allowed experiments with anthrax," a disease contracted
from infected cattle and sheep, and the United States did not.
The documents given to Mr. Marks were heavily edited, apparently for
security reasons, but they showed that even while the C.I.A. was
operating this program it was conscious of its questionable nature.
One 1950 memorandum, on finding psychiatrists to conduct experiments,
noted that one applicant's "ethics might be such that he might not
care to cooperate in certain more revolutionary phases of our
project." But it said another candidate's "ethics are such that he
would be completely cooperative in any phase of our program,
regardless of how revolutionary it may be."
A 1963 inspector general's report that apparently resulted in a
program being discontinued noted "the concepts involved in
manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and
outside the agency to be distasteful and unethical."
According to Mr. Marks's documents and an earlier Senate
investigation, the C.I.A. conducted secret medical experiments from
1949 through 1963 under the code names Bluebird, Artichoke, MK Ultra
and MK Delta. The C.I.A. inspector general's report in 1963 described
the program as the "research and development of chemical, biological
and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine
operations to control human behavior."
5,000 New Documents
Last week, Admiral Turner announced that the agency had discovered
some 5,000 documents pertaining to the program that were not available
to the Senate intelligence committee in 1975. They are financial
records of the various experiments and include the names of doctors
and medical institutions that performed the tests.
Today, Admiral Turner gave the members a closed-door briefing on the
new material. He will appear before a joint public hearing of the
intelligence committee and Senator Edward M. Kennedy's health
subcommittee on July 29 to more fully describe the new findings. The
intelligence committee staff will begin studying the documents later
this week.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, private citizens can obtain
heretofore secret government documents, provided they do not endanger
current national security matters or disclose matters that could
invade the privacy of other individuals.
Mr. Marks charged that it had taken him nearly two years of legal
pressure to dislodge the material he had received. He said he had
been promised the additional 5,000 documents before the end of the
month.
----------------
The excerpts below are from
_The Search for the Manchurian Candidate_
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks.htm
by John Marks, 1979
Chapter 2:
Similarly, the Security office planned to use outside consultants to
find out about such techniques as ultrasonics, vibrations,
concussions, high and low pressure, the uses of various gases in
airtight chambers, diet variations, caffeine, fatigue, radiation, heat
and cold, and changing light. Agency officials looked into all these
areas and many others. Some they studied intensively; others they
merely discussed with consultants.
Chapter 12:
What -- if any -- success the ORD men had in creating heart attacks or
in any of their other behavioral experiments simply cannot be
said. Like Sid Gottlieb, Steve Aldrich is not saying, and his
colleagues seem even more closemouthed than Gottlieb's. In December
1977, having gotten wind of the ORD programs, I filed a Freedom of
Information request for access to ORD files "on behavioral research,
including but not limited to any research or operational activities
related to bio-electrics, electric or radio stimulation of the brain,
electronic destruction of memory, stereotaxic surgery, psychosurgery,
hypnotism, parapsychology, radiation, microwaves, and ultrasonics." I
also asked for documentation on behavioral testing in U.S. penal
institutions, and I later added a request for all available files on
amnesia. The Agency wrote back six months later that ORD had
"identified 130 boxes (approximately 130 cubic feet) of material that
are reasonably expected to contain behavioral research documents."
Considering that Admiral Turner and other CIA officials had tried to
leave the impression with Congress and the public that behavioral
research had almost all ended in 1963 with the phaseout of MKULTRA,
this was an amazing admission. The sheer volume of material was
staggering. This book is based on the 7 boxes of heavily censored
MKULTRA financial records plus another 3 or so of ARTICHOKE documents,
supplemented by interviews. It has taken me over a year, with
significant research help, to digest this much smaller bulk. Clearly,
greater resources than an individual writer can bring to bear will be
needed to get to the bottom of the ORD programs.
--
Mind Control: TT&P ==> http://www.datafilter.com/mc
Home page: http://www.datafilter.com/alb
Allen Barker